Slash squicks me out. Yet when you write I think I'd be entranced by two squids getting suntanned on a polluted iceberg while reading the phone book.
Where did you get "one short word roll from that sharp tongue, and land with such percussive elegance at the back of a throat"? Where did you get all these other pearls, and the characterizations and mannerisms that make our guts clench with emotion? I could quote quite all the text...

Hat down and eyes open in wonder, as usual.